Fort Riley’s emergency responders were put to the test Wednesday, with a chemical IED exercise–the annual training ensures responders are ready to respond to any scenario.

This exercise was designed to show if they’d make the grade by putting the FBI, Manhattan and Junction City Fire and Police departments to the test.

Emergency Management Specialist Chris Hallenbeck said it’s necessary for different agencies to understand each others resources and capabilities.

“This year it’s a terroristic type of event, attack at our gate which is a chemical attack and that requires as you see behind me all the response elements to respond with mainly our hazmat,” said Hallenbeck.

Agencies respond as if it were the real thing, setting up a hazmat site to ensure responders and victims could be cleaned of the harmful chemicals.

The last thing you want to do is in an incident is everybody showing up to respond to that and really not have made those connections, you don’t understand everybody’s capabilities,” Hallenbeck explained. “So, that’s why we always include our partners when we’re doing these exercises.”

This type of exercise is done every year to ensure standards are met across all agencies and keep channels of communication open.

“The biggest takeaway here is for our community to know that we do this just to make sure that we can protect and keep our community safe and that’s why we do this annually to bring everybody together,” Hallenbeck said.

Real life training prepares for more accurate action when the worse possible situation hits home.

Fort Riley had several training scenarios happening all around the Installation Wednesday causing several road closures.